1. Globalization of Product Development
How High-Tech Companies are Disaggregating and
Globalizing their Product Development Lifecycle
Part II: Right Product, Right Time
Anil Bhatia and Romit Dey
High-tech companies achieve success not only when they bring their products
to market quickly— but also when they create and develop the right products at
the right time, that are well aligned with customer needs. In Part 1 of this paper,
we discussed the reasons why many leading companies have extended their R&D
capabilities beyond company walls in the form of global sourcing: an increased
ability to adapt, be flexible, and meet speed-to-market imperatives.
However, global sourcing is no silver bullet, and companies have experienced mixed
results in their attempts to leverage global R&D partners. Through our research,
Infosys has identified several key characteristics that predict a company’s ability to
successfully leverage global sourcing partners for new product development (NPD)
and new product introduction (NPI) activities. Here, we discuss these characteristics,
and also present the most significant parameters to consider when defining a global
sourcing operating model.
The Global Product Stewardship Solution from Infosys
Building upon our extensive experience working with companies at the
leading edge of global sourcing adoption, Infosys has developed the Global
Product Stewardship Solution. Leveraging this solution, Infosys works with
OEMs that partner closely with one or more outsourcers—outsourcers who
are explicitly concerned with the product’s overall success in the marketplace,
not just on design and engineering milestones. The Global Product
Stewardship Solution offers an opportunity to leverage the outsourcing
partners’ expertise at almost every stage in the product lifecycle.
Aug 2006

2. Organizational Readiness for Global Sourcing
Organizational Maturity
Level 1 Level 2 Level 3
Model
Key players engaged Product engineering team Product Engineering, Product Engineering, Marketing
within OEM only (Team Leaders, Project Marketing & Sales (Team & Sales (Team Leaders, Project
organization Managers)Executive sponsor: Leaders, Project Managers, Managers, Product Managers,
VP-Product Engg Product Managers, Sales Team Sales Team leads)
leads) Executive sponsor:
Executive sponsor: Corporate
VP-Product Engg, VP-Sales,
ownership (C-level) in addition
Head-Marketing
to functional sponsors VP-
Product Engg, VP-Sales, Head-
Marketing
Change readiness Teams feel threatened, desire Co-existence on specific Collaboration for mutual benefit
to ring-fence and limit partner product areas. Some instances driven by aligned objectives
involvement driven by of collaboration— typically to achieve product success
“self-preservation”. in choke-point/ bottleneck (revenue, growth, profitability,
areas within the Design market share)
& Engineering efforts or
with respect to customer
deployments and/ or support
Current levels of Highly localized team. Only Some involvement across Significant institutionalization
Remote Global contract manufacturing and different functions, business of cross-border working (best
Working (RGW) design firm are significant units and geographies from capabilities/ best location
external entities in different within organization as well combinations determine
geographies as external entities. Mostly participation and ownership of
manual working (conference specific work products).
calls, meetings etc.)
Institutionalization
accompanied by aggressive use
of best practices, collaboration
tools, design workbench, etc.
IP Leverage and Improve generation, capture, Protection by “piecemeal” Comprehensive “layered”
Protection/ IP and reuse of IP internally. IP approach. Individual entities protection through contractual
management in global Protection by non-sharing/ only see IP relevant to own controls, access management
context (RGW) non-exposure with outside piece of work. and built-in IP safeguards (e.g.
entities encryption)
Information Closed environment Controlled environment Controlled environment
management & security with localized measures with enterprise measures
for information security for information security
enforcement at open/ access enforcement at open/
points access points. Platform for
collaboration enables auditing
and remedial action
Operationalizing Global Sourcing: Assessing organizational maturity and readiness
Several key risks of globalization exist: geopolitical risk, country-specific risk, and investment risk. Because these are well
documented, this paper addresses only those risks specific to the product development & engineering functions.
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3. For example, consider IP leverage and protection. Every day, companies pursue new ways to better generate, capture, and
reuse intellectual property and product knowledge; one solution is to seek global sourcing vendors. While organizations
may initially be apprehensive of a potential vendor’s ability to protect their IP, Infosys observes that—by obtaining a better
understanding of standard global sourcing processes and procedures—their fears are assuaged. Global sourcing partners
understand the criticality of protecting and safeguarding their clients’ intellectual property. The most mature vendors use
appropriate legal, technological, and physical measures to ensure their clients’ IP is not lost, stolen, or misused; for example,
they designate separate seating areas with restricted physical access, and regulate the movement of magnetic media within
and outside of the premises. Additionally, vendor employees sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) with their clients, and
confidentiality agreements with their employers.
Another risk involves managing the increased complexity and global spread of work. As clients gain experience in remote
global working (RGW), they can optimally distribute work to best capability/best location combinations for specific
work products. When accompanied by the aggressive use of best practices and collaboration tools—tools which enable
organizations to manage far-flung design teams and leverage the benefits of a 24/7 design cycle—this distribution of work
accelerates time-to-market and consequently increases competitive advantage. Managed well, this risk can be turned into a
strategic advantage.
Infosys Product Stewardship Case Study
The client is a world leader in digital media design and gaming industry, with broadcast professionals as key
customers. For a professional VDR (Video Disk Recorder) product that was slated for end-of-life, the client was
looking to rejuvenate the product with new feature-functionality to create an extension. Infosys conceptualized and
designed an end-to-end re-engineering solution that would put the rejuvenated product at the forefront of the market.
Infosys set up an overall vendor program management effort and staffed the teams to conduct the system design,
design for manufacturability, test programs, and jigs. The scope of the effort was spread over 2 locations, 4 vendors,
17 engineers, and 1376 tasks.
The client realized the following key benefits:
• Infosys rationalized broadcast streams from 12 to 5
• The program brought product savings of an 8x multiple on BOM costs with a 2-4% variance in release
schedule
• Met the concept & design goals with a 3% variance in schedule
Infosys was able to establish an interface early in the product life cycle with Product Marketing, which helped in the
conceptualization and early-stage design. The product was successfully demonstrated at NAB (National Association of
Broadcasters), and the scalability & host of features put the VDR Product far ahead of competition.
Operationalizing Global Sourcing: Key parameters of Operating Model
Infosys observes that the global sourcing operating model evolves across five characteristics: scope of ownership and
responsibility; pricing model; risk sharing; IP contributions; and partner-driven product operations leverage for OEM.
Consider, for example, scope of ownership and responsibility. In the early stages of a global sourcing operating model, the
outsourcing vendor’s responsibility and scope is typically limited to well defined components or software modules, and
might only focus on development and testing services. In many cases, the initial client/vendor relationship may revolve
around incremental releases of mature products. As the OEM gains confidence in its outsourcing vendor’s capabilities, it
then expands the scope of responsibility to include assembly/sub-assembly level components, with the vendor providing a
project-based managed services model. At the highest level of maturity, the outsourcing partner can assume responsibility
for developing entire modules or products as part of an overall product line design and engineering program. The scope
of responsibility can include program management and collaborating with in-house product management teams (and,
potentially, other outsourcing partners such as manufacturing) to bring together the end-to-end development of an entire
product.
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4. Another example is the evolution of pricing and risk-sharing models. Early on, the outsourcing vendor may provide resources
on a ‘staff augmentation’ basis, and develop pricing around a time and materials model. As the relationship evolves, and the
vendor begins bearing increasing responsibility for the design and development of components and assemblies, the pricing
begins to shift to a ‘fixed price’ model for an agreed set of deliverables, based on mutually estimated efforts. Depending on the
vendor’s level of technology-specific capabilities, the extent to which it contributes to IP, and the level of risk it assumes, there
may also be royalty or revenue-sharing arrangements with the OEM .
Infosys observes that companies will experience several stages of maturity as they globalize their product development
lifecycles—evolving their operating models and achieving increasingly closer collaboration with their global sourcing
partners. Companies at the leading edge of this transition are evolving from a cost-driven, transaction-oriented approach to a
value-driven, program-oriented approach focused on product-market goals rather than only on deliverables and SLAs.
Operating Model Maturity Levels
Operating Model
Level 1 Level 2 Level 3
Characteristics
Scope of ownership & Very defined, individual Specific components Partnering for entire modules
responsibility components outsourced consolidated to specific or products, outsourcing
to specific partners; done partners at logical assembly/ virtually every aspect of
opportunistically at a sub-assembly levels—still development. Goals aligned to
transaction-level, so there is split between hardware and overall product success in the
no responsibility outside of software; done at a program- marketplace. Typically, there
contracted delivery of code or level, so responsibility is a split of responsibilities
component includes schedule adherence between hardware and software;
based on knowledge of however, one partner takes
dependencies within overall responsibility for overall
Design & Engineering product program management
program along with system integration
Pricing model Rate times hour based Rate times hour based on Fixed recurring costs based
on skillset requirements skill-set requirements with on mutually estimated efforts
and estimated duration some sharing of product along with royalties on key
of involvement. No other success payoffs components/code base
payments are made
Risk sharing None. OEM bears entire risk Some risk-sharing through Significant risk-sharing through
SLAs on output timeliness revenue upside.
and quality
IP contributions Code/component design Code/ component design Most of code/component design
deliverable becomes IP of the deliverable becomes IP of the
deliverable becomes IP of the
OEM OEM
OEM; key components remain
partner IP for royalty model to
operate
Partner-driven product Software or hardware PLM systems and processes + R&D management processes
operations leverage for engineering processes only software and/or hardware (stage gate etc)PLM systems
OEM and processes + software and/or
hardware
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5. Concluding Remarks
Global sourcing in product development and innovation is an inevitable next stage for any company facing business pressures
on basic R&D, product design cycles and new product introduction and commercialization. As development lifecycles
shrink, and consumer demand continues to rise for more innovation and increased feature-functionality at a lower price
point, global sourcing offers an increasingly attractive proposition for addressing these challenges.
In response, companies are disaggregating their product development value chains and relocating design teams based on
best capability, best location combinations. They will experience several stages of maturity as they globalize their product
development lifecycles, evolving their operating models and achieving increasingly collaborative relationships with their
global sourcing partners. Companies at the leading edge of this transition are evolving from a cost-driven, transaction-
oriented approach to a value-driven, program-oriented approach focused on product-market goals rather than only on
deliverables and SLAs.
As a result of such globalization, high-tech companies will reap tremendous benefits that go beyond simple cost reduction
to include re-charging their innovation cycle and tapping into new streams of revenue. The ability to adapt to new market
conditions, take advantage of opportunities that globalization creates, and effectively address accompanying challenges will
determine the long-term winners and losers in high-tech companies.
For more than 25 years, Infosys has been a pioneer in product design and co-development in different models across multiple
geographies. Leveraging extensive experience and research, Infosys creates customized solutions for companies requiring a
roadmap for globalizing both their internal and external product innovation cycles—and also works in partnership in the
design & development functions. While globalization offers huge potential, only companies that view globalization through
a strategic lens, and execute accordingly, will capitalize on that potential. Infosys offers superior capabilities in assisting
companies to leverage global partnerships that will drive product innovation and will deliver the right product to their
customer at the right time, while optimizing new product development operations and controlling costs.
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6. About the Authors:
Anil Bhatia, Senior Principal, Strategic Global Sourcing Group
Anil is responsible for business development related to strategic outsourcing arrangements. He works with key
clients in several industries -- high-tech, manufacturing, transportation, and media and entertainment. In this role,
Anil works to guide the direction of the client’s global sourcing initiative by designing the roadmap and business
case, improving sourcing effectiveness, and implementing the sourcing strategy. Anil often works with senior client
executives to identify and deploy sourcing strategies that provide maximum business value and best fit to the client’s
future direction, readiness, and risk profile.
At Infosys, Anil also provides critical inputs to the solutions team for the development of a portfolio of solutions
related to outsourcing strategy, work globalization, and sourcing governance and implementation.
Prior to joining Infosys, Anil spent several years as a management consultant with EDS and A.T. Kearney, Inc. In
his 17 years of consulting and industry experience, Anil has executed business transformation engagements with
an emphasis on aligning business and IT strategies. He has developed an expertise in strategic global sourcing, IT
strategy, and business process improvement.
Romit Dey, Associate Vice President, Industry Solutions Consulting (High-tech & Manufacturing)
Romit co-heads the Industry Solutions Consulting practice for the High-tech & Manufacturing business unit at
Infosys. Throughout his 13 years of consulting and industry experience in India and the US, he has been focused on
Product Innovation, Customer Operations, and their intersection points. Over the years, he has engaged high-tech
clients in enterprise software, telecom OEMs, high-tech contract manufacturing and consumer electronics. He has also
worked on product portfolio strategy and marketing for global majors within the Pharmaceuticals industry.
Romit has been with Infosys for the past six years and has held corporate roles in new business areas (business
consulting and industry solutions). While at Infosys he has advised start-up companies in Silicon Valley on product
definition and offshoring strategy. Within his current portfolio, he leads a team focused on solutions in Lean Product
Management and Product Lifecycle Management. Over the last year, he led research initiatives in collaboration with
the ESCA on Integrated Product Management and Globalization of Product Innovation.
Prior to Infosys, Romit was a Principal Consultant in the Performance Improvement practice of PwC Consulting in
the Americas geography. While at PwC, his most significant client relationship was with one of the world’s largest
electronics companies. While at PwC, Romit led strategic initiatives driving corporate change and operations
improvement initiatives through technology deployments.
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